Environmental politics

Environmental politics designate both the politics about the environment^[1] and an academic field of study focused on three core components:^[2]

• The study of political theories and ideas related to the environment;
• The examination of the environmental stances of both mainstream political parties and environmental social movements; and
• The analysis of public policymaking and implementation affecting the environment, at multiple geo-political levels.

Neil Carter, in his foundational text Politics of the Environment (2009), suggests that environmental politics is distinct in at least two ways: first, "it has a primary concern with the relationship between human society and the natural world" (page 3); and second, "unlike most other single issues, it comes replete with its own ideology and political movement" (page 5, drawing on Michael Jacobs, ed., Greening the Millenium?, 1997).^[2]

Further, he distinguishes between modern and earlier forms of environmental politics, in particular conservationism and preservationism. Contemporary environmental politics "was driven by the idea of a global ecological crisis that threatened the very existence of humanity." And "modern environmentalism was a political and activist mass movement which demanded a radical transformation in the values and structures of society."^[2]

Environmental concerns were rooted in the vast social changes that took place in the United States after World War II. Although environmentalism can be identified in earlier years, only after the war did it become a widely shared social priority. This began with outdoor recreation in the 1950s, extended into the wider field of the protection of natural environments, and then became infused with attempts to cope with air and water pollution and still later with toxic chemical pollutants. After World War II, environmental politics became a major public concern.^[3] The Post-war era resulted in the 'Great Acceleration', which saw a dramatic increase in industrialization, agriculture, and consumption of resources leading to a new geological era of environmental deficit.^[4] The development of environmentalism in the United Kingdom emerged in this period following the great London smog of 1952 and the Torrey Canyon oil spill of 1967.^[5] This is reflected by the emergence of Green politics in the Western world beginning in the 1970s. Notably, the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm marked the entry of environmental politics into the international agenda, giving rise to new environmental political thought and its incorporation into policymaking.^[6] Since then, environmentalism has taken shape as its own political ideology and has had numerous variations, from more radical theories like 'deep ecology' which seeks to prioritize environmental needs to more reformist ideologies which view environmental damage as an externality.^[7]